


Ball and Chain

by Miss_M



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Masturbation, Police, Prison, Smut, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-04
Updated: 2013-09-04
Packaged: 2017-12-25 15:10:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/954593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_M/pseuds/Miss_M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Detective Brienne Tarth knows better than to let a man get under her skin. But when she has to repeatedly interview Jaime Lannister on behalf of the Fraud Squad, not only can he do it, but she finds she actually wouldn’t mind having him under her skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ball and Chain

**Author's Note:**

> You know how Jaime and Brienne’s atomic-level UST starts while he is technically her prisoner? Of course you do. Well, I kinda took that and ran with it. All the way to cop!Brienne experiencing very inconvenient bouts of lust while getting ready to arrest Jaime. (Plus, you know and I know that as much as she can be putty in his hands, she could also totally take him in a way they’d both enjoy.) Things only get more inappropriate from there, although word to the that-way-inclined: there are no actual iron balls or chains involved in this fic. I was aiming for a smidgen of metaphor to go with the smut. :-)
> 
> I own nothing, and know nothing about actual police procedure, business and extradition law, prison rules and regulations or, indeed, forensic accounting. Or any other kind of accounting. I am OK with all that being fuzzy/inaccurate in this fic, since I trust nobody is reading this for the verisimilitude of the setting. Just so we’re clear on what we’re all here for.

There are days when Detective Brienne Tarth wishes she had remained an accountant. Then she could afford tailor-made suits instead of having her grandmother’s friend alter off-the-peg men’s suits she buys on the cheap. She would work in a nice office with colleagues who would leave her in peace, and the only times she ran would be to catch a bus or on a treadmill. Not that her experience in forensic accounting goes amiss, and one rarely needs to run after suspects in the Fraud Squad. Still, she cannot help this frequent daydream about another life, a life into which she would fit with ease, as she sits across from Jaime Lannister in his corner office with the vertigo-inducing view. 

Tywin Lannister is business magnate extraordinaire. Time was, they were called robber barons, but Lannister Sr. won a highly publicized libel case against a newspaper which dared to call him a tycoon. Tywin having absented himself from the country, it is his older son and CEO who deflects Brienne’s questions, as she expected he would. Yet, for all that he knows how to say all the right things to glide smoothly through the interview, he does not strike Brienne as a chip off the old block. 

Jaime Lannister is magazine-handsome, and knows it. The face, the hair, the eyes, the smile: all bespeak a man so used to getting his way even a police investigation into Lannister Holdings’ business practices fails to impress itself on him as a serious matter. His watch cost more than Brienne’s yearly rent. His sleek suit looks like it was hand-stitched around his body. Maybe it was, Brienne thinks while he answers her inquiries in words which sound neutral, but could be putdowns or could just as well be flirtation. The kind of mindless, automatic flirtation no doubt appreciated by the office assistants and society girls of his acquaintance. The kind of flirtation undeterred by its target being a police detective who knows she is better with numbers and factual questions than with jokes and allusions, whom no one (she least of all) would describe as attractive or desirable. 

At the conclusion of the interview, she proffers her card, if Mr. Lannister thinks of anything else, etc. He deliberately, she is certain, brushes her fingers with his when he takes it, smiles knowingly at her slight start. She burns with anger, disgust and a truly unfortunate bout of arousal as she waits for the elevator, does not look back to see if he is watching her from his office, fat-cat with cream on its whiskers. 

When the elevator finally arrives, she has an excuse to look back while she stabs the button. His office door is closed, himself nowhere in sight. Brienne shakes her head at herself all the way down, and is relieved to go back to piecing together the paper trail of Lannister Holdings’ many embezzlements and scams. 

It is several weeks before she speaks with Jaime Lannister again, and by then the noose is starting to tighten. Brienne knows it, she put much of the evidence together herself. The certainty lends her a sense of calm, an almost Zen-like focus before she goes into the interview room. 

This time the view is not of skyscrapers and blue sky, but of muddy-green walls and an ancient Formica table, the two-way mirror to her right as constant as an old friend. On her left sits her new partner. Brienne is glad of his presence as well. He is a quiet young man, very thorough and professional. He even seems to prefer spending time with his partner to making friends with the station’s asshole brigade, Hunt and Connington and their lot, for whom it is the height of hilarity to call Brienne a dyke, sexual-harassment prevention workshops and sensitivity seminars be damned. She knows the kid is dreaming of bigger things, Homicide or Narcotics, but all in all he is proving to be the best partner she has ever had, is Pod. ( _Podrick._ She must remember he does not want to be called Pod, now that he is out of uniform. It is only polite she remember that.)

Jaime Lannister’s lawyer is his younger brother Tyrion, and how that is not a conflict of interest Brienne does not understand, decides she does not care. She takes point, Podrick chipping in when appropriate. The answers continue evasive, but Brienne refuses to feel frustrated. The evidence is worth more than a confession. Jaime Lannister is simply digging a grave for himself and his father’s empire. 

The A/C at the station is on the fritz, as per usual, and the windowless interview room is absolutely boiling. Brienne puts up with it as long as she can, but when she catches the slight smile in the corner of Jaime Lannister’s mouth after she tries to discreetly wipe sweat off her upper lip for the third time, she gives in and takes off her jacket. She knows there are massive sweat stains on her sleeveless top, can tell Podrick wants to divest himself of his jacket as well. She eyes their suspect, who made himself comfortable without jacket or tie as soon as he came in, sees his eyes trace her broad shoulders and muscular arms with what seems like genuine appreciation. 

“Which gym do you go to?” Jaime Lannister asks. 

He sits there, in their interview room which has not been painted since the smoking ban and retains a faint fug of tobacco smoke, his shirtsleeves rolled back comfortably, looks at her arms like he would not mind touching them, and asks her _that_ as though they were on a first date. As though he will hint that he might drop by some time when she is there, check out the facilities, or something equally ludicrous and come-hither. 

Brienne fights the urge to squeeze the pen in her hand, to snap her fingers in his face and make him focus on the charges rolling his way like a quiet avalanche. Does not miss the slight frown on his brother’s face followed by a barely suppressed eye-roll. 

She is profoundly grateful she never listened to her father’s well-meaning but clueless assurances that she did not need to wear a bra, could just wear comfortable clothes like she did when she was little. Her top is dark blue and the room is a hothouse, but her breasts feel like she just dove into a cold swimming pool. She brings the interview to a close, resolutely not thinking about wet muscle, soft sandpaper, what Jaime Bloody Lannister’s tongue would feel like. 

While the Lannister brothers are leaving the station, Brienne overhears Hunt telling a dwarf joke in an unnecessarily loud voice, asks Pod ( _Podrick! His name is Podrick_ ) to flip a coin since they can never decide what to get for takeout while they work late, poring over the mountains of paper produced by Lannister Holdings. She may not be able to keep as tight a rein on her mind and body as she should when around Jaime Lannister, but that does not mean she will not arrest him as soon as they have enough evidence. Or go to the gym after work and run till her calf muscles burn and her thighs feel like they will kill her if she so much as considers having a lustful thought. 

The call comes a few days later. They have been monitoring Lannister accounts, and so know Jaime Lannister is flying to the Caymans, to join his father and sister no doubt. Flying first class no less, the ticket in his own name, his passport number attached. Had his father not taken the private jet, no doubt he would have taken his sweet time using that. 

Even with everything she has seen so far, Brienne can hardly believe the casual arrogance of the man and all his kin. She nearly causes a collision while she drives to the airport, Podrick trying and failing not to let his fingers creep toward the dashboard as cars pull out of their way just a tad more slowly than Brienne would like.

“Fucking Lannisters!” she spits as they approach the international terminal. Makes a half-apologetic, half-annoyed face at Podrick’s astonished expression. She hardly ever swears, unlike some of their colleagues, who seem to be in a constant profanity race with the criminals they arrest. She feels bad about snapping at the girl working the check-in counter to hurry the hell up before Podrick and she take off for the boarding gate, badges held out front to clear their way through the crowded terminal. 

Pod is younger and faster, but Brienne has longer legs and is angry, to boot. She swears again, silently, when she sees the line of people in front of the gate looking much shorter than she expected, people vanishing down the little tunnel into the aircraft even as she pounds up to the gate, barks that they stop boarding at once, and hoists herself up onto the counter, causing the astonished flight attendant to fall back a step with a squeak. Brienne scans the assembled passengers from the higher vantage point, does not see Lannister’s blond head. She hears Pod run up a second later, followed by a couple of uniformed police officers, demand with great authority to be allowed to check the passengers who have already boarded. 

Brienne casts a feral, focused eye over the surrounding area, people milling around or stopped, gawping at her up on her perch.

Then she sees him. He steps out of the men’s room two gates down, as casual as though he were leaving on vacation, stops dead when he sees her up there like a singularly unamused stilt walker. His face shifts minutely, as though trying to decide whether to look amused or cornered, while she jumps down and walks up to him, forcing herself to walk more slowly than she would like. 

“Jaime Lannister, you are under arrest.” Her voice sounds strangled with anger, and he grins. From up close, she can see he is tense, the choice between fight and flight etched clearly in his green eyes. 

For a second, she wishes he _would_ try to flee or, better yet, resist, so she would have an excuse to hit him. She can almost feel his cheekbone on the back of her hand, the sudden shock of impact. Pictures pushing him up against the wall, through the men’s-room door. Can feel him heaving, all that lean muscle straining beneath her, the cold tiled floor hard on her knees and the forearm which is not pressing against his windpipe. 

The images are strong and clear as scents and they only last a second, but they surge through Brienne’s stomach and lower, a swell of blood and blind desire. Then a uniform is cuffing him while she recites the charges, asks if he understands his rights. He watches her with a kind of regret she does not want to recognize or understand. 

“You couldn’t just let it go, could you?” he says. “Had to end it this way.”

She takes another second to measure out her response, leans in and ( _a surge of gratification_ ) a bit down so she is certain he will feel her breath on his nose and mouth when she says in a perfectly level tone: “There is no other way for this to end.”

For a while, then, she is convinced this is indeed so. The ride back to the station, endless questioning – several detectives tag-teaming it with Pod and herself so she never feels like she is alone with _him_ – followed by the indictment, Lannister Holdings’ lawyers negotiating with the prosecutor, finally the trial. Jaime Lannister looks like he just stepped out of _GQ_ and Brienne is half-convinced he will walk on the strength of his looks and attitude alone. Tries not to feel self-conscious when she is called to the stand, fails, does manage to sound convincing, as well she should since she put the damn case together, manages not to tug on the hem of her jacket or to look at the accused. 

Her lieutenant is so pleased with the result he commends her and Podrick in front of the entire squad, which changes nothing except that the asshole brigade’s favorite joke about Brienne the Big Butch Dyke is replaced by the one about Big Brienne and Little Pod Sitting in a Tree, etc. Brienne can take it, though it reminds her viscerally of middle school, but she can see that Podrick is struggling to maintain his cheerful equanimity. She doesn’t want to embarrass the kid by forcing him to talk to her about it, gets the idea to ask the lieutenant if they could spend a few days with another squad, give Pod a taste of how the other side lives and works. 

This is how they find themselves participating in an ill-coordinated raid conducted by Organized Crime. 

Brienne is scarcely out of the emergency room with a half-melted ice pack and a paper bag full of painkillers before she gets an urgent call from her lieutenant: a business associate of the Lannisters is being held for twenty-four hours after being arrested during the raid in which she and Pod took part, and the prosecutor’s office would dearly love to add taking down this Petyr Baelish to their list of achievements. Brienne knows the name, has come across it many times while working the Lannister case, usually in reference to drug running and people smuggling, the kind of activity Tywin Lannister, with his taste for bank fraud and bankrupting small countries, did not like to associate with personally. But since Tywin and his daughter and his younger son are safely away in a more accommodating jurisdiction, that only leaves Jaime Lannister as a possible source. 

Brienne goes alone, Pod being kept in hospital overnight after taking a blow to the head in that thrice-damned raid. She focuses on how she will get Lannister to talk. He refused to divulge anything about his family’s business dealings that did not involve him and him alone, but maybe his distaste for Baelish and the prosecutor’s love of cutting deals with cooperating witnesses will loosen his tongue. 

Brienne thinks that sounds reasonable enough. Then she commands herself not to think about Jaime Lannister’s tongue, especially in view of how their last meeting went. And that she looks even more of a fright than usual. Her left eye is nearly swollen shut, the entire left side of her face is one large bruise in an interesting palette of sickly shades where it slammed against the wall before her attacker attempted to choke her. Her voice sounds tobacco-rough, but she knows she was lucky. The monster of a man who attacked her during the raid is not known as Biter for nothing, if his police record is anything to go by. 

She cannot quite suppress a stab of lust mingled with pity when Jaime is led into the interview room in the prison, looking ghastly in the orange jumpsuit, thinner and scruffier than she had thought possible in so short a time. His skin has that particular pallor people get when they do not get enough sun. Brienne recalls the last thing his brother did before leaving the country was to demand Jaime be placed in the protected-prisoners unit, away from Gen Pop. That could not have done his pride any good, having to do time with rape victims and pedophiles. Still, with a face like his in a place like this, she imagines it’s for the best. 

His face takes on an expression she has not seen before when he sees her, a nascent smirk replaced by an intense, sharp focus on her features. Specifically the left side of her face. She cringes inwardly, then is immediately angry at herself for being embarrassed at his scrutiny. Let the bastard look. 

“What happened?” he demands while the guard who brought him in closes the door, leaving them alone. Alone in a glass room with video cameras. Demands it like he has a right to know, like he can do something about it. 

She considers telling him to mind his own business or just ignoring him and asking about Petyr Baelish, but the painkillers have eased some of the pain, and so she shrugs and says: “Not everyone comes as quietly as you.” Says it with a smooth ease that is completely unlike her. Like the two of them often share a joke, and this is no big deal. 

He says nothing at that, though the edges of his nostrils turn so pale Brienne realizes he is furious. She does not even want to begin to wonder why that might be, opens the file she brought and shows him Baelish’s picture. The expression of barely contained anger is immediately replaced by wry amusement. Yes, he is indeed willing to talk about Baelish, wouldn’t mind seeing that weasel try and survive in Gen Pop. They talk for over an hour, Brienne grateful that she has to take so many notes she need barely maintain eye contact. 

When the guard comes to take Jaime back to his cell, he tries to get the story of what happened to her face out of her again, but she fobs him off with a mild quip about the risks inherent in a raid on a mob-owned nightclub. It is only once she is unlocking her car and looking back at the severe, shuttered façade of the prison that she realizes she should not have revealed even that much about an ongoing investigation, curses Jaime Lannister for slipping under her guard, determines that she will talk of nothing but Baelish when she returns. 

Three days later, her lieutenant calls her into his office. With evident pleasure, he informs her that Biter was fatally stabbed while awaiting transfer, after he was denied bail. “Serves the bastard right,” the lieut says. “How’s your face?” 

Just like that. 

Brienne moves through the rest of her day as though her heart were paralyzed. Podrick keeps giving her concerned looks, but she cannot deal with him and his need for reassurance just then. She drives to the prison to talk to Jaime Lannister about Petyr Baelish again. She brings him an offer from the prosecutor, keeps the interview professional and on point, while inside she is screaming at him. She knows he arranged Biter’s murder, knows that there is no such thing as a secret in the tangled web that connects police officers, prison guards and prisoners, that he could easily have pieced it all together from her slip-up about the raid. The Lannisters still have an awful lot of money and influence, and life is cheap in prison. 

Life is cheap, she thinks as she stares at Jaime Lannister while he reads the prosecutor’s offer, frowning slightly and moving his lips. She stares at his mouth, blurts out before she can stop herself: “Why did you do it? What possessed you to arrange… _it_?”

He pays her the compliment of not pretending he doesn’t understand what she means, but he doesn’t answer her either. Instead, he leans forward, across the table, and runs the tip of his index finger down her left cheek so lightly she feels no pain from the contact, only the barest shiver of a touch. 

“It looks better,” he says simply, kindly, as he watches the constellation of greens and yellows and purples that is the bruised half of face, the brightening red of the other, normal, just plain ugly half. His fingertip lingers on the skin just by her mouth as they stare at each other. Brienne wonders how many seconds she would get if she were to round the table and grab his face and kiss him right then and there. Would the guards barge in and separate them before their tongues had barely touched? Would she have time to straddle him, to rub herself against his thigh, his crotch, show him her muscles weren’t just for show? Would they get ten, twenty, thirty seconds for him to lift her onto the table, push her back, cover her body with his, move his mouth and hips against her the way she’d wanted him to since that fuggy afternoon at the station? He is licking his lips and she realizes she is, too, bites her lower lip to make herself stop. Spots of color appear in his pallid cheeks when he sees her do it, his eyes fastened on her mouth. 

With effort, Brienne sits back, only an inch, far enough that his finger loses contact with her skin. His hand hangs in the air a second, two, then he pulls it back. She asks another question about Baelish, and he answers. Brienne tells herself she is imagining the skittery edge in her voice and his. The guard appears much sooner than she expected, and Brienne is certain everyone who works in the prison saw them touch on camera. Jaime rises without looking at her, but then, with patently false casualness, he tells her that lights-out is at ten. 

“Yes?” Brienne says, putting as much what-the-hell-does-that-mean as she can into the word.

He smiles. She wants desperately to squeeze her thighs together, and he says: “I’ll think about you.” Then he is gone, the guard throwing her an unreadable yet obvious look before the door closes. 

At two minutes to ten that evening, Brienne lies on her bed, on her back, in her pajamas, and she does not look at the bedside clock. She is freshly showered and wide awake as she tries to review all the information at her disposal. 

She knows she is a lonely fool.

She knows now she is the sort of woman who gets wet because a man had somebody killed for hurting her, even if that somebody was a worthless piece of trash like Biter.

She knows that her career can only suffer if any hint of impropriety with a prisoner she herself put away were to get out, as it undoubtedly will since everyone down to the cleaning staff must have seen them on camera.

She knows that the very thought of the words ‘conjugal’ and ‘visit’ with relation to Jaime Lannister is the most ridiculous thing ever. Even if conjugal visits were allowed in their state. Even if there was anything remotely conjugal-like about this situation. 

She knows that men in prison will jerk off thinking about anything, about linoleum probably, might even amuse themselves with a circle jerk while talking about the stupid bitch on the outside who’s focusing all her attention on her man inside at that exact moment. 

She knows that the men in the protected-prisoners unit often get their own cells, an odd sort of perk in a chronically overcrowded prison system. 

She knows that the walls inside prisons are notoriously thin, you can hear _everything_. 

She knows that she has no idea how long it might take a large body of men all crowded in together to settle down to sleep. 

She does glance at her clock then, decides to give it till half past ten. 

She knows what his finger ( _his fingers on her card, on her hand_ ) felt like, what his eyes felt like. She is certain she knows what the rest of him would feel like. 

Her mouth is dry. She licks her lips, licks them again. Thinks how she did not kiss him that afternoon, thinks about her tongue, his tongue, how she could almost imagine it that day at the station. She has a vibrator, but she prefers the feel of skin, of flesh. Right now, she needs it, even if it is only her own skin, her own flesh. 

She licks her fingers and slips them under her pajama top. Closes her eyes, focuses. Doesn’t need to focus: his mouth is there, his teeth, his tongue, the scrape of stubble, the glide of saliva, her nipples already his. She pinches, rolls, and her whole body shifts on the bed, wriggling for more contact, meeting only air, only skin and muscle and bone. She sighs loudly, tries to hold it back: the walls in her apartment building could rival those in any prison for thinness. 

She wriggles some more, legs starting to move apart of their own accord, but her other hand is still lying stubbornly on her stomach, over her top. She rolls her eyes at herself, slips the hand into her pajama bottoms. Plays with her hair briefly, tangles her fingers in it while she visualizes his hands, his fingers, on the table, gesturing in the air, on her bruised cheek. 

Yes. Just so. Just like that. 

She loves the feeling when the pleasure first starts. This is a necessary release, she is not ashamed of it, but her world does not usually move significantly. So the build-up, the first, tight coiling of that spring is especially precious to Brienne. 

She imagines what it would be like to take Jaime Lannister the way he is undoubtedly thinking of taking her. If he _is_ thinking of taking her, if he is not asleep or laughing himself silly at her expense. The flush of anger at this, at him for doing this to her, has her imagining things that border on the violent. She imagines shoving her fingers inside him, making him go completely rigid before he starts thrusting, fucking himself with her hand, desperate for release, while she bites his shoulder and clenches the strong muscles of her forearm to make him keen with want. Imagines squeezing him with her legs till he can’t breathe, till she’s wiped every last shred of smugness off his face, imagines riding him till all she can see in his eyes is white, no green at all. Imagines making him go down on her till her knees feel like water and refusing to touch him at all. 

Her fingers are moving too fast, and she does want to enjoy this as much as she can. She eases up, sooths, strokes. His tongue feels more than just wonderful, wonderful doesn’t even begin to cover it, as his hands stroke her hips, her thighs, and he murmurs unintelligibly before he goes back to licking and lapping at her, gentle, teasing, drawing it out, knowing she’s his now. 

Her head rolls, her bruised cheek protesting as she presses it against the pillow, and she feels his fingers, imagines the finger with which he stroked her cheek teasing small cries out of her now, opening her up. She bends her knees, lifts up her pelvis to make it easier for him, hears his chuckle of appreciation. Realizes she doesn’t want to wait any more, it’s been weeks, _months_ , and she will be damned if she goes one more minute allowing him to disturb her private thoughts and invade her muzzy mornings. 

They move together with ease, as though they’ve done this a thousand times already, and in her confused half-dreams and fleeting imaginings, they have. She gasps without concern for her neighbors or what they might think, as he strokes, strokes, then rolls his hips to make her breath catch and sweat prickle on her upper lip, between her shoulders, between her breasts. She adds another finger and stretches, stretches for him, can only gasp without words when he asks if she likes that. He has a self-satisfied smile on his face as he hovers over her, but it’s blurring as the pleasure starts to get the better of him too, and she slides her palms over his buttocks, his waist, pulls him in deeper with strong thighs and hands. His groan is as loud as hers, her nipples rubbing against his chest, the tufts of hair she imagines there. She pinches her nipple hard, doesn’t breathe for a second to relish the sting. Imagines his mouth there again, his mouth on her neck, on her throbbing cheek, his thumb between them, her own thumb pressing with practiced ease. 

She locks her heels behind him, urges him on with every inch of her. He is too far gone for cocky questions now, his weight on her, his sweat on her tongue, his skin heating where her palms pass over it, his voice a labored breath in her ear, in her hair. The pleasure rolls over her, rolls her over, lifts her shoulders and heels off the bed while he presses her down, shaking, so beautiful, and she says his name. Just his name, not ‘Jaime Lannister’ or ‘Mr. Lannister.’ She has never said his name before, and she knows she sounds ridiculous, and she doesn’t care as he gasps his fill and relaxes as though nerveless, his mouth slack and wet on her shoulder, his breath as labored and gasping as hers. 

When she comes to, she realizes she must have fallen asleep for several minutes, and she cannot believe he is not lying on her or beside her. 

She knows she is a fool, but she looks at the clock and notes the exact minute. She will have to go back, to talk to him about Baelish, but she determines now to ask him what he was doing that night, ten minutes earlier. Not to accept his evasions and insinuations. Have him tell her exactly. Tell him that they should agree on the time, so they can talk about what they did at their next meeting, talk about what worked, what they both liked. 

She refuses to think how, with the deal the prosecutor offered him, he will be out sooner than expected, sooner than she dares hope. Refuses to think that she is always saying how all she wants is a peaceful life. She concentrates instead on figuring out how she is going to get him to describe his cock, how she will explain what she tastes like or what her nipples are like so the camera doesn’t catch their words, her blushes, his excitement, the delight he will undoubtedly take in having her broach the topic. How she will face Podrick and the lieut and everyone else when she knows she fully intends to spend the next few years fucking Jaime Lannister every way she knows how, and then some once he gets out. 

If he’ll have her. She hopes he will.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has a sequel [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/955952).


End file.
